Georgia PBS Interventions - Florida's Positive Behavior Support ...

Social Skill GroupsSome children don’t pick up on the non-verbal cues that others do. We have to teach them what itmeans to “pay attention”, “be quiet”, and “behave.” There is a wonderful line in the book The CuriousIncident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon. The main character, Christopher, who hasAsperger Syndrome basically said “I didn’t like it when my teacher told me to be quiet because shedidn’t say for how long I had to be quiet. I didn’t know if it was for five minutes or the rest of theday.” Many of our children are this way. I remember once going up and asking my teacher if it was okayto swallow my saliva when she asked us to be quiet; because, in my own head that sounded very loud andI assumed she might be able to hear it if I swallowed.As a behavior specialist, I am privileged to hear all the complaints of teachers. I frequently hearthings like: 1) “Kids should just behave”, 2) “They know better”, 3) “I shouldn’t have to tell them to begood”, and 4) “I’m not going to reward them for something they should be doing anyway.”So let me ask you this: How many of you drove today? How many of you possibly went over the speedlimit at some point either intentionally or unintentionally? Personally, there have been many times thatI have been running late and it was worth the risk of a $75 ticket for me to go over the speed limit.However, if the police worked it different and at any moment a police officer could pull behind me,clock my speed, and pull me over and give me a check for $75 for going the correct speed limit; I canguarantee you that I would rarely speed. I would be much more inclined to follow the posted speedlimit if I were rewarded for doing so.Children need to be taught what it means to pay attention, be respectful, be polite, be responsible andso on. They need opportunities to practice these skills and we need to catch them doing it and rewardthem for it. If you don’t believe this then you might want to make a career move because you are goingto be miserable and think that children were born to be bad. Children weren’t born to be bad; theywere born, not knowing what you expect of them.Role playing and videos are the best ways to teach these skills to students. They need to see what youmean when you tell them what you want. I used to spend a week teaching my little first graders what Iwanted when we walked down the hallway. We would go out in the hallway and practice it over and overagain. I gave booster shots of practice from time to time. When my cohorts were scolding theirstudents in May for pushing and shoving down the hallway, my students were appropriately walkingdown the hall because I had taken the time to teach what I expected. I bragged to them consistentlyabout how well they were carrying out the rules of walking down the hall.Positive Interventions and Effective Strategies Riffel -© 2005 - 43 -